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<title>Garter Stitch by Wayward_WLW (Parker_Haven_Wuornos)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30126582">Garter Stitch</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/pseuds/Wayward_WLW'>Wayward_WLW (Parker_Haven_Wuornos)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But the Hurt happened in Canon, Dean Winchester Knits, Domestic, Family, Fluff, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired By Real Life Knitting, Knitting, Knitting as Romance, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:35:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30126582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/pseuds/Wayward_WLW</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a superstition among knitters that you shouldn’t knit with bad feelings, that the negativity will get tangled in the stitches and stay there, and whatever you make will bring bad luck. </p><p>Dean knows better than to dismiss superstition, so while he works, he thinks about his family. Mostly, he thinks about the person he’s making it for and lets the thought carry him, even when he makes a mistake and has to painstakingly unstitch half the row, his tongue between his teeth as he tries not to drop any of the stitches. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Garter Stitch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Finally got around to posting this after I put it on tumblr.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p></p><div class="">
  <p> </p>
  <p></p>
  <div class="">
    <p>There’s a superstition among knitters that you shouldn’t knit with bad feelings, that the negativity will get tangled in the stitches and stay there, and whatever you make will bring bad luck. </p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>Dean knows better than to dismiss superstition, so while he works, he thinks about his family. Mostly, he thinks about the person he’s making it for and lets the thought carry him, even when he makes a mistake and has to painstakingly unstitch half the row, his tongue between his teeth as he tries not to drop any of the stitches. </p>
  </div>
</div><div class="">
  <p>As soon as he’s good enough, Dean starts work on Jack’s hat. It’s almost winter, and the kid will need it with all the time he spends outside. When a piece of his hair falls onto it, he only notices to think that his hair has gotten too long if it can be wrapped around a purl stitch. He doesn’t tug the hair out because it would ruin the flow he’s gotten into, so it stays, hidden in the ribbing. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When he’s making Cas’s hat, his hair is freshly cut, and a piece drops onto his needles. Dean doesn’t move it because he knows Cas won’t mind if he finds it.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam’s hat is halfway finished, and Dean doesn’t notice the hair until he’s already on the stitch after it. He knows he could pick it out, but it makes him smile. He thinks about the ghost of an old lady--he pictures all knitters as old women, even though he himself is neither--whose ghost would be impossible to burn because her work is scattered across the country, each with a strand of hair bound into it. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The blanket is his first big project, and he selects the pattern carefully, and the yarn even more carefully. He casts on his stitches and then undoes it so he can cast on again. He counts them carefully, twice.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It takes days, or rather it takes nights. Nights of getting out of bed when he can’t sleep, settling on the couch with a cup of tea, and thinking about his family while he works. Each stitch is a memory, something that pulls him further and further away from whatever nightmare got him up in the first place. Not all the memories are good, but he can look up, see the family photos and evidence of their life scattered around the living room, and he remembers that things are good now. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He pictures the blanket getting large enough for him to tug it over Cas’s shoulders while they watch movies. He rarely wears the coat these days, and never inside, so sometimes Dean catches him shivering. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He knits and imagines pulling the blanket up to cover Jack when he naps on the couch, and imagines folding it and laying it over the couch so it’s neat when Sam comes over to visit. He thinks Eileen will say that she likes it, so he’ll make one for her in dark gray and surprise her with it next time she visits. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His hair falls into it sometimes, and he just lets it. Some strands fall off, but others are knit in with the yarn, the grays especially are invisible in the ivory stitches. He’s starting to admit that he likes having these little pieces of himself in everything he makes. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Eventually, he casts the stitches off the needles, carefully making sure the binding isn’t too loose or too tight. He weaves in the ends, and that part is still a little messy, but he tells himself it gives the blanket a nice homemade quality.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When he hands it to Cas, he’s bashfully proud, even as he makes excuses, assures him the pattern wasn’t difficult, that if he looks closely he’ll see the mistakes. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cas holds it like a holy relic, his hands both perfectly gentle and full of surety.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Dean is struck with a memory that feels only half-real. Of himself as nothing more than a bleeding blip of energy, and Cas holding him, carrying him out of hell.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Do you like it?” He asks carefully. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cas is still cradling the blanket, looking at it the same way he looks at Dean, and holding it the way Dean now faintly remembers being held. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“It feels like you,” Cas says, and Dean knows that memory must have somehow gone both ways.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“It’s not much, just--” </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cas stops him with a look. “It’s an act of creation.”</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
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